Tag Archive: Women CEOs

We need to re-direct the conversation to Marissa being in the minority as a women CEO in a Fortune 500 company – and how we can change that abysmal ratio.

By Marilyn Nagel (CEO, Watermark)

When the news broke of Marissa Mayer’s appointment as CEO of Yahoo, the excitement in the air was palpable. Women welcomed the discussions it ignited, specifically those about the lack of female CEOs at fortune 500 companies. Everyone was pleased that Marissa was named CEO, not because of her gender but because she is a respected female executive known for her creativity and leadership.

The women CEOs in the Watermark community immediately stepped up to offer her support and guidance. Their collective experience would offer Marissa insights in areas new to her, including P&L. The power of women supporting women

Few women have joined or founded startups and gained the kind of experience that enables their careers to explode like Marissa Mayer’s. Here are recommendations on accelerating the pace of women in high-tech.

By Jack Hidary & Cindy Padnos (Contributors, Fortune)

The announcement Monday that Yahoo! selected Marissa Mayer as its new chief is a great signal for Silicon Valley. Marissa joined Google as its 20th employee back in 1999 when it was a fledgling company and had an uncertain future. Historically, few women joined or founded startups and gained the kind of experience that enabled Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook to rise to their positions of responsibility. Yet, we are now seeing some positive signs.

Across the US, we are seeing more and more tech startups co-founded or run by women. These include: Silver Tail, One King’s

I applied to Springboard because I wanted to get to know more women who were founders of healthcare startups, who had raised money, and who had already walked down my path.

By Neng Bing Doh (Founder & CEO, HealthCrowd)

Springboard is one of those programs where once you’ve experienced it, you want to get the word out to everyone. If you are a woman entrepreneur or an aspiring one, you need to know about Springboard Enterprises. Springboard is a human capital network that has helped over 400 women-led companies raise more than $5 billion in equity financing, including 10 IPOs and legions of high value M&As since January 2000.

As a member of this year’s Springboard Life Sciences class of 11 companies, I got to experience the power of the network

As with all the past lazy, stereotype-ridden articles like this one, it gets the facts wrong. For example, writing about Marimba, the software company I co-founded and led as CEO, Jackson states that “after the bubble burst the company had no future

“Be open to opportunity and take risks. In fact, take the worst, the messiest, the most challenging assignment you can find, and then take control. – Angela Braly, CEO of WellPoint.

By John Bussey (Contributor, Wall Street Journal)

Along the career path, the CEOs say, pursue new skills relentlessly.

Change jobs after you’ve mastered the current one. Be willing to tack sideways on the career track, or even backward, to pick up key expertise or command a business unit.

“I knew from an early age that I wanted to lead a company,” says Denise Morrison of Campbell Soup. “I developed a strategic process for my career plan that set the final destination, developed the career track, identified skills to build, took line positions

Following the movements of C-suite women has become a spectator sport. When Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz received her now infamous phone call, professional women started counting the number of females they knew who still occupied the top ranks.

“Who is left in technology?” asked one panicked participant at a recent networking event for women in digital media. We almost need female CEO trading cards to keep track.

Before Silicon Valley had Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs, it had Sandra Kurtzig. By founding and taking public one of the region’s first software companies almost four decades ago, she became an industry giant. The fact that she was the valley’s lone female tech CEO also made her a pioneer for women, too.

Kurtzig, 64, recently announced that she had come out of retirement to take the helm of a new startup, almost 40 years after starting ASK Corp. And perhaps her biggest surprise — and disappointment — is that as she looks back at that trail she blazed